Courts To Hear Two Kentucky Death Row Cases

The Kentucky Supreme Court is set to hear an appeal in the long-running case of an escaped inmate from an Oklahoma prison facing a death sentence in the fatal kidnapping of a Kentucky distillery worker. A federal appeals court, meanwhile, will hear the case of a Kentucky death row inmate convicted of killing two people in Louisville later this year.

The state justices will hear the case of Michael Dale St. Clair on March 13th in Frankfort. St. Clare is appealing the conviction and sentence out of Hardin County in the 1991 kidnapping of Francis "Frank" Brady of Bardstown. Prosecutors say St. Clare and an accomplice snatched Brady from a rest stop along I-65. Brady was later found shot to death in neighboring Bullitt County.

St. Clare has also been sentenced to death in Bullitt County on a charge of murder. The justices heard an appeal in that case in February.

In the federal appeal, the U. S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has set an October 1st hearing date in the case of Roger Lamar Wheeler. Wheeler's been condemned to death for the 1997 slayings of Nigel Malone and Nairobi Warfield. Police say he was on parole for ten counts of robbery when the killings happened.

Police say Malone and Warfield were stabbed multiple times with a pair of scissors and the first detectives on the scene found a trail of blood leading from the pair to the street. Detectives say blood samples collected at the scene matched Wheeler.